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School is not education; do not let anyone tell you otherwise. I believe I've quoted this before, but "do not let school get in the way of your education." This, of course, does not mean that you should just drop out of school and live in the woods (cough transcendentalism cough), however just be imformed that what schools can teach is essentially nothing compared to what you will be able to learn in life.

In order for that to happen, however, you must meet some stipulations. These aren't black and white requirements, so I'm sure you already meet them, but it's more along the lines of how familiar you are with yourself.

First off, is work. Learning is not easy. You will constantly need to be working on bettering yourself and never stop learning. Learning is not a thing you do, but rather a way of life. Learning is like working out/staying fit. You can make goals and new years resolutions all you want, but if you truly want to change yourself, you need to work for it over a long period of time (your entire life).

Second comes perception. It's important to recognize that our brains are hardwired not to recognize defined things but to recognize patterns. For example, if I asked you to think of a chair, you may think of a plastic deck chair, or a lecture hall chair, or a fancy office chair, or whatever. However, you still know that all of those are chairs. Now expand that idea. Can you recognize a pattern between fish and birds? How about between republicans and democrats? Regardless of the subjects, choose two items and draw similarities and differences between them. This is the idea that everything fits together, and it our job to recognize the ways they do.

Third is retention and communication. What use is knowledge if there's no way to pass it on to others? Personally, I struggle with this part, however, utilizing the previous two I am able to continue developing my ability to convey my thoughts to others. In fact, you're part of this development now; this very blog is making me better at communications.

In conclusion, school and work will give you a lot of facts that you won't see often. Life will give you a few facts that you'll see every day. You must make sense of those facts, make relationships between everything you sense, and if you don't know something, look it up - it's easier now more than ever.

Learning is not something you can just do, it's a way of life.